


Asking for Forever

by Optimistic_Nihilist



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Author Is Sleep Deprived, Canonical Character Death, Canonical Child Abuse, F/M, The Author Regrets Everything, and cannon promptly flies off the rails, i have about 10k more words in worldbuilding notes if anyone wants to hit me up, off her high horse throne before cannon comes into play, or; an alien retail worker kicks jenova
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-26
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-17 17:15:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29720565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Optimistic_Nihilist/pseuds/Optimistic_Nihilist
Summary: There’s a quote, from somewhere I can’t remember. You don’t get to die and be reborn the same. You come back, but you come back wrong. That is the price you pay for resurrection.Whatever passes for gods in this long-forgotten hellhole… well. My price was heavy.
Relationships: Lucrecia Crescent/Vincent Valentine
Kudos: 1





	Asking for Forever

The last. An ark, a vessel, a complete piece of shit made of the bones of a world wrent by hubris. A collection of opposites- Bermuda, the last and conglomerate of the sea creatures. Yig, the last and conglomerate of the scaled creatures. Caelus Hastur, the source and destination of all that took to the sky. Atlach-lich, the last of the spinners and mother to them all. Eilhort, the last star-seed. And me. The last living worshipper of these Old, Old gods. 

That is not to count the very world we fled on, the creator and mother to every single piece of the puzzle we once were. Azathoth-Terra, the World-Mother. Earth.

The last and desperate act of a long dead people, of which there was no recovery. I am the last. And in the sea of desperate and twisting, twisted and subsuming minds, our Great Mother has gone mad.  _ Had _ gone mad. 

I don’t blame her. Her experiences were enough to make  _ any _ go mad, much less the planet itself. But. I’ve seen the way she looks at our neighbors, how she studies her children. As before, I am less than a speck under her shadow, and it allows me to see how she plots and plans. I’d hoped for a land unlike our own, but hopes are for dreaming and lesser people. 

Her gifts are of the Trojan’s of old, or perhaps even older. They are poison apples, and in their innocence these ‘first ones’ do not falter.

Bermuda of the ancient lakes that used to cover her surfaces is gone. Caelus is no more. Yig is as the rest. In their place is a pair of marbles glowing with what they used to be, and shivering with malevolence. Trinkets formed of lost souls, to further poison a sister of my mother’s that is so much older and more powerful than she.

It changes nothing, but I  _ am _ sorry for this. For whatever comes of this, mother. I was the last of your sentient children to still follow you, and even if I had no choice in the matter I followed with  _ loyalty. _ But this senseless murder is beyond what my conscience can bare.

“I cast this as one last act of repentance,” I began my chant, fingers gentle on the time-torn pages. “Another iron chain to add to my sentence.”

“Of Regeneration, hopes and dreams awakened,” A circle began to form beneath my feet, and then a smaller circle within that. “Of something  _ other than pain, _ hearts broken, taken.”

This is it. The last moment to back down. I could go back, return to Mother’s side as normal.

…

Who am I kidding? There was never really any other way this-  _ I _ \- could end.

“On the back of three truths, I impose my lie,” A polaris shaped compass rose bloomed, three of the four spines white and a single black, pointed south. “To strengthen swept sorrow, Into the dimmer veil of night.”

A scream, not verbal but mental, betrayal dug deep enough to  _ kill. _ I’m sorry, mother.

“Of the four and one gates to Ascension, the dead rotting the roots of all existence,” Shapes flickered in the corners of my eyes, but I kept my mind anchored against the force of her scream. Barely. Somehow. “On the wings at the back of my soul, and the switch of young for the old.”

The outside circle grew, four-pointed stars blossoming on the outside of the crest, and the inner Polaris grew spines as the four hands  _ moved. _

“Close the four gates, Rotate the three fates,” The entire magic circle shifted, aligning, raising, and I kept at it, a headache blooming between my eyes, but this was the end of the line. I  _ could not _ falter. “Point the road to Kingdom come eastward,” The black hand moved from south to north as the spire shifted, the clocktower bell’s chime my signal to drop my hold as it  _ dug _ into the fabric of the universe.

Chains came into existence, the evermany limbs of the guardians between the veil wrapping around the many already burnt into my form, and I could  _ feel _ the chains catch on the other side.

“As I am bound to you, as you are bound to I, O Shards of the Great Goddess.”

In the inbetween state of only souls, I  _ pulled. _

_____

It’s dark, is the first thing I notice. The bed is warm but the moon is full. I’m at the window and looking up at it before I can blink.

“What are you doing?” A breath on my shoulders, and I do not shiver. 

“It’s been a while since I’ve seen the moon.” I try to say, but there is something that stops me. The words stick in my throat like spiders, and I tense this jaw and shake my head, willing the stranger to drop it. 

I’m not going to be able to speak, this time. That’s fine. I stare up at the moon and let my thoughts drift, and I’m gone.

…

The moon again. I take a moment just watching the breeze tickle the small pointed- grass? -blades of grass into waves, the lack of light throwing everything into a halo. The trees shift gently against the wind, leaves shimmering like starlight as the world sleeps, at peace. 

“Fear not this night, you will not go astray.” I humm quietly to myself, and that great big moon. I cycle through the song twice before the shadow in the ceiling decides to come down and meddle with the common folk.

“Where is that song from?” The quiet voice asks, and again, I do not turn. 

“My home.” I say. “My father used to sing it to me.” 

I drift.

…

“Hello again.” I say from my spot at the massive window, not looking behind at the shadow.

My reflection is… well. A middle aged white woman with brown hair, tied up in a style I couldn’t mimic if I tried. Unfamiliar, and yet obviously mine. For now. 

It’s raining outside. I haven’t seen rain in a while. The sound of it against the glass is mesmerising, even if the moon is not out tonight.

“First there was ice, frost, and fog.” I recited quietly. “Above, a cold void. Below, a fire. And in between, a demon.”

"Rivers wound between the glaciers, eleven twined into one, the source of all life and the waters all life returns to," I continued, "From the void, where ice met fire, from the waters all life

returns to stepped a man, with skin the color of ice and eyes the color of sunset."

Ragnarok was one of my favorite stories. It deserved to be shared.

I drifted, again.

…

“I’ve always liked the time before dawn.” I told my shadow, leaning against his chest as I looked up at the wide array of  _ sky _ above us. “There’s no one here to tell you how you’re supposed to be, so it’s easier to be who you  _ are _ .” 

“Who are you?” He asks, his voice a soft rumble through my bones.

“I’m someone who did not die when she should have.” 

…

“I think I remember this story from a dream, once.” I said, half my focus on the unnatural blue of my eyes-  _ my _ eyes- and the other half on the thunderstorm in the distance. 

“Stars-light, stars-bright, wishes that shine with Heroes might. What is a dream but a heart's desire, when demons lurk and hatred mires.” I grinned at myself, my reflection copying the wry expression.“Let confusion reign, and chaos  _ rule _ .  _ Pay _ the piper,  _ play _ the fool. Cry in the night, herald the dawn; Ages past and times long gone. Winds of change in tempest roar, heed words o’ remembered lore. Gods and men make warriors true, for mortal be the immortal too. Wicked secrets in betrayal veiled, evil's lies wrought heroes failed.”

Lightning flashed outside the window, covering up the last verse as the house shook.

_ Called to Hunt, born anew. Shed the false, find the true. Calamity's end and Malady's bane, hawk-winged wolf and horn-crowned thane. Old Ashes rise, Viral stone-holt burns. High winds changed for war-tide turned. _

…

Songs and poems, jokes and recollections, debates and wonderances. Everything I started to remember from what used to be  _ mine.  _ My shadow heard them all. He was  _ kind _ .

“Then, what are humans?” He asked, and I laughed.

“Simple.” I grinned at him with  _ my _ teeth, sharp and wild. “Humans are dead stars, looking up at the sky.” 

…

I don't know if he knows, my shadow. That I am not the woman whom this body belongs to. It  _ should _ be obvious enough.  _ Should. _

I can hope, I suppose. Every time I try to tell him something stops me. I wish it  _ wouldn't _ . 

I've started calling him the pet name in my head.  _ Veil. _ It suits him.

…

  
  


“Why are you not afraid of me?” He asked, quietly.

“Many reasons.” I answered softly, playing with the short fuzz on his bare chest. “We’re all killers. We’ve all killed parts of ourselves to survive. Something has to die for us to stay alive.”

“Do you know what dirt is? Sand is powdered stone, but do you know what  _ dirt _ is? It’s rotted corpses. Old, ancient, broken down roots and plants and mushrooms and bones.” I sat up slightly to look him in the eye. “You could snap my neck if you wanted to. But you haven’t.” Not that it would really do anything.

I rested my head back on his chest.

“I trust you.”

...

Her hair was turning, not my natural blonde-gray, but simply gray-white from the stress. I awoke every night now, smiling and happy and  _ vibrant _ with my shadow as her stomach grew from the tiny star nestled inside of it.  _ My  _ star. My  _ shadow _ ’s star.

My host wasn’t meant for this. She was too much Minerva’s kin for me to be so present, in her body and in her mind. She was fading, fizzing, flying apart as the  _ Gaian _ in her reacted to the  _ Terran  _ in me in her _. _

She wasn’t going to last long. Long enough for the little star; not longer.

It was time for the truth, as much as I could give. My shadow deserved that much.

“The beginning, as most if not all beginnings do, starts with pain.”

___

_ Why _ , and her mental voice was bleakly tired,  _ is it that the beginning always starts in pain _ ?

A child, barely more than an infant, playing with her dolls. Building up and knocking them down again. Too young to understand that those things she was playing with weren't dolls. 

A chance, a half of a percent in a million, whittled down further with another chance, and another. Her power came from life but she was not nearly self aware enough to recognize that. Was it a  _ surprise _ , that the chess pieces fought back? Plagues and monstrosities, a gladiator battle with a child in the king's spot, releasing horrors to watch the ants dance. The most natural kind of sociopathy; the kind of children who haven't applied object permanence to people yet.

They revolted, they scythed her down like a sickness, which backfired because as cruel as she was she was also the  _ life _ of them, a bloody circle where she would lash out and they would bite back until the once mighty planet was barely a pile of rocks.

She survived, because of course she did, and activated the protocols that would enable her to rebuild. But she was a child, and she didn't understand, and so she blamed them. She hated them with all the force of a child throwing a tantrum. 

Infinitesimal, the percentage of chance needed for the perfect storm to be born, and fuck if fate wasn't a bitch. She landed on a planet which already had life, already had one of her sisters watching over it, and spread her seeds. 

Of course the natives scythed her down as well, she was an unknown, unkind sickness, and of course her sister scorned her. Gaia was everything Terra wasn't; kind, compassionate, and old enough to know better.

An apocalypse that spread over several dimensions, hellscapes of planets empty of anything but hatred, caused because of a child who should have known better.

A cycle of violence and hatred perpetuated by bullshit, repeating over and over and over again until she was so weak, so off balance, that an untrained unused scrap of a human soul, unearthed because of her frantic scraping, gained enough momentum to knock her off of her pedestal.

A fraction of a fraction of a  _ fraction _ of a chance. And, somehow, I did it. And now…

We were one. There wasn’t a point where Terra ended and I began. It was just  _ we _ .

There’s a quote, from somewhere I can’t remember. You don’t get to die and be reborn the same. You come back, but you come back  _ wrong. _ That is the price you pay for resurrection.

Whatever passes for gods in this long-forgotten hellhole… well. My price was heavy.

Terra might be dead, and I might be inhabiting her corpse, but I was  _ alone. _ There was not a single being here with me.

I was alone.

…

I was wrong. Host didn’t even last  _ that _ long.

I couldn’t feel her anymore, the emptiness where we were separated, a blank slate for me to infect. She was dead and I almost mourned for a moment, but. There wasn’t any  _ time. _

The body seized, and I limped against the wall, aching fiercely for my shadow. Why wasn’t he here, with me, like he always was? Like he should be?

Why did the cursed scientist separate us? I could only barely feel him on the edges of the shard of myself, cracked, shoved inside of him to control whatever the degrading host shoved into his fragile body. 

He certainly wasn’t fragile anymore. He wasn’t dead anymore, either. He would  _ never _ die again, if I had anything to say about it.

The body seized again, and I groaned, cursing evolution and half-measures and Lucrecia’s tiny hips. You know what, why not add insane mad scientists to the mix. Why was so much of me pushed into such a  _ tiny _ host? 

Down, down, fuck stairs,  _ seriously. _ I know it’s probably just going to be seven or so hours of pain before anything happens but  _ fuck _ it hurts. 

At the end I'll get to see them, though. My little star, Polaris. Or Venus, maybe? Lucifer is on brand but I don't like the connotations. 

I need to get to my greater self. I'm too much Terra- or as these fools call me,  _ Jenova _ \- for this body and I know the little one is too. I can  _ feel _ them.

It's not healthy for them to be in here like this, and they're attempting escape far too soon - and far too late- for the host to be able to provide for them. I need to get to my greater self.

Sirius is apt. Regulus, maybe. Orion? Absolutely  _ not. _

Another wave of pain bears down on the host's teeny, tiny hips and I want to _strangle_ every _dead-beat_ , _white coat,_ **motherfucker** in this **fucking** hallway.

…

The very first kind of life is bacterium. I start by splitting a tiny sliver of my  _ self _ and directing it to form- well. A tiny, biological solenoid, basically. No need to go out of my way for anything. These things already existed, their makeup a part of me since before  _ I  _ was  _ me. _ They'll suck up sunlight, breed, and come back to me.

I form their shells out of the host's dead cells. She's not using them, certainly, and neither am I at this point. And as they grow and multiply and die, and  _ spread _ , my power will grow again.

As a bonus, they also spread power to my little one.

I cradle him to  _ my _ chest, the host's corpse half-melted into my flesh where I used her resources to regenerate. Can I get a fuck mad science? Because fuck mad science. My entire lower organ train was just…  _ woosh. _ Gone. Well, not anymore.

"Hello, my little star." The absolute  _ wonder _ that is his tiny ribcage flexing, lungs used for the  _ first time _ stretching and moving, the tiny heart beating  _ so fast _ against my chest. "Hello, little Eridan."

Eridanus, the path by which the sea of souls sweeps. Apt. And very, very ironic. Which is kind of my style. 

… What's that noise?

Footsteps. Heavy boots smacking against tile.  _ Fuck. _ Not enough time! I can't absorb the host any faster and if I  _ don't  _ absorb her I'll be missing  _ half my intestines _ . 

They're too close. I'm too late. The only thing I can do is curl around my son and pray.

Heavy hands- chains- restraints-

_ My son! What did you do to my son? Give him  _ **_back!_ ** **My** **_SON_ ** **!**

The world goes dark.

____

I am not asleep, and so I do not wake, but more of me comes to awareness. Slowly. 

_ No. _ The shattered, sheltered pieces of me reject this host. He’s too brash, there’s no natural curiosity-  _ except. _ Except, the larger parts of me, cannot afford  _ not  _ to. I take hold and then, just  _ take. _ His soul isn’t mine; I release it to Minerva. 

This host, on the other hand… hmm. I like him. Clever and conscious and  _ networking _ . Connections to the other hosts. I curl around and through his  _ bones _ and copy whatever gifts the exposure to pure Minerva gave him. He’s kind, too. I like that. I will help him grow.

_ This _ host is bubbly. He reminds me of me, almost. Before Terra. When Terra was  _ Earth _ and I was not the last. I wrap around his ribcage and build him stronger bones. If he's anything like me, he will need them.

These hosts are okay. They’re not perfect fits, but nothing is, and they support each-other. It’s sweet. I like them. I eat their sicknesses but leave them their alcohol; poison is none of my business.

I am a conglomerate. Mentally and physically, I am a mind-hive. It’s beyond who I am; it’s  _ what  _ I am. It’s what humans, also, are  _ not. _ I can’t stop it, though. I  _ need _ the spread, as plants need sunlight and humans need their senses. I’m too  _ weak _ .

Terra sacrificed most of her children to sink roots into her sister. I sacrificed  _ her _ to keep this distant family alive. What was once a mighty ocean is now a slinking river, and while it gets larger with every birth and death it’s still not enough for me to feel safe here.

My son is amazing. Beyond amazing- miraculous, gorgeous, absolutely  _ alive. _ He’s also needy, as all children are, and as much as I take I try to give to him. Him, and his father. They’re so alike it’s like I’m seeing my Veil painted with  _ my _ colors.

His friends, too, are sweet. The funny red prophet and the valiant knight. They’re so… they’re like a reflection of every fighting story I’ve ever read. Wolf-senpai and Tenzo-kohai and Crane-koi. 

_ Those who break the rules are trash, but those who abandon their friends are worse than trash _ . I tell my son wistfully, cradling his mind in my own as he dreams and the wards placed on him fade. The connection between us is so thin, but I can teach him this.

They’re also very much not mine. The prophet is so much Minerva’s I can almost see her grasp on his skin. I don’t  _ want _ to hurt them, but Minerva hates her sister even now and there seems to be a disconnect between her and me when I tell her that I am  _ not her sister _ . I try to stay out of them as much as I can, but I don’t have a choice. I flee to their useless organs, the things they cut out when infected. I help in little ways, staying out of the way for the most part. 

___

**Author's Note:**

> If there was any justice in the world, there would be several chapters where Jenova-oc falls in love with Vincent. They would debate philosophy and towards the end Jenova would tell Vincent of how she’s not Lucretia and Vincent would confirm whether or not he knows. The last chapter of that arc would be from Hojo’s POV, and be about his perfect specimen.  
> There would be more, about the Earth-that-was and how Terra/Jenova came to become the Calamity. How and why she killed all the people on her surface. Why she spared this one to be the vessel of the energy of all she’d slain.  
> It would detail Sephiroth’s life- how Jenova-oc would grow slowly more in harmony with Minerva, until she was less an other and more like a WEAPON.  
> But there isn’t so here’s where my muse left me. With about 5000 words and a headache. yeehaw.


End file.
